Alaska to make video to counter 'misinformation' about wolf hunt

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is getting ready to spend $100,000 on a video meant to counter what it calls misunderstandings about the state's controversial wolf-killing program.

The video project comes as the arguments over predator control flared up even hotter last week after Fish and Game shot wolves from helicopters in the Interior. The department wiped out a pack including a pair fitted with radio collars for research work by the National Park Service, drawing a barrage of criticism.

Riley Woodford, who is helping manage the video effort for Fish and Game, said the project has been long in the works and wasn't provoked by particular incidents.

"We're not trying to make a big commercial to get people to like predator control. But we want people to understand that wolves are not almost extinct in Alaska, there are lots of wolves in Alaska, and this is how it works," he said.

Priscilla Feral, president of Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and a long-time critic of the program, said a public relations effort is delusional at a time Alaska is shooting collared wolves and removing the wolf protective buffer zone outside Denali National Park and Preserve.